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Sebastien Bourdais, No. 1 McDonald’s Cosworth/DP01/Bridgestone:
“I don’t know if there is a safe place (to start), but I’d rather start on the front row than back in the pack. We’ll see what happens. I think the McDonald’s team did a good job. The car was pretty good. I think it was a little harder to do it on the second run because there was a lot of traffic and I didn’t slot in the right place on the racetrack. I had a slow car in front. You know, it was just kind of playing yo-yo a little bit. It’s never really easy when you can’t put a string of laps together around here. You really need to get in the rhythm and get it a little bit faster lap after lap. I think we were pretty lucky we held onto it on the last run. We’ll see how it goes. But it seems to be going on for a good weekend. ”
· FAST FACTS: Will be his fifth race here for the two-time Cleveland GP winner (2003 & 2004). Experienced the scariest moment of the 2006 season here last year when he started third but was hit on Lap 1 when Paul Tracy tried to drive between Bourdais and Junqueira which caused Tracy to launch over Bourdais and roll over his helmet. Retired in 18th place and was admitted and subsequently released from a local hospital after a precautionary CT scan was negative for damage. Started third, ran as high as second and finished fifth here in 2005 due to the timing of the caution flag and his final pit stop. Started third, led 88 laps and won back-to-back races here in 2004 after having provisional pole taken away on Friday.
Won from pole in his rookie race here in 2003 after having led 33 laps to earn his first win in the U. S. in the debut of having McDonald’s on his race car… Going for his fourth consecutive win for the second time. Last year he became only the fourth driver in the CART/Champ Car era (1979-present) to earn four consecutive wins in the series (Long Beach, Houston, Monterrey, Milwaukee) in 2006. Others include Al Unser Jr. (1990), Alex Zanardi (1998), and Cristiano da Matta (2002 with NHR). His Milwaukee win was his 9th in 11 races. Failed to set a CART / Champ Car era (1979-present) record fifth win in Portland after finishing third.
Overall, the last time a driver earned five straight wins was when Al Unser accomplished the feat in 1970…Became the first open wheel driver to win three consecutive championships since Ted Horn accomplished the feat from 1946-1948 and only the second in the 98 year history of the sport…He has the rare opportunity to win four consecutive championships this year if he can again capture the Vanderbilt Cup, which would extend his run that began in 2004. Bourdais would be making history as no Champ Car driver has ever won four straight championships. Four in a row is very rare in professional sports in fact it has never been done in either NASCAR or NFL and it hasn’t been accomplished in the last twenty years in the NBA, NHL or MLB.
